Saturday, August 16, 2014

A recent blog post by anthropologist Jennifer Raff reports on a statement signed by 139 leading scientists "with expertise in genetics, human biology, biological
anthropology, and evolution" who have weighed in to critique the "hereditarian" flavored book - A Troublesome Inheriance- by Nicholas Wade. These are heavy duty scholars, some of whom such as Rosenberg, are believers in race. A Science article on the letter states:

The letter was spearheaded by five population geneticists
who had informally discussed the book at conferences, says co-organizer
Rasmus Nielsen of the University of California, Berkeley. “There was a
feeling that our research had been hijacked by Wade to promote his
ideological agenda,” Nielsen says. “The outrage … was palpable.”

Wade juxtaposes an incomplete and inaccurate account of
our research on human genetic differences with speculation that recent
natural selection has led to worldwide differences in I.Q. test results,
political institutions and economic development. We reject Wade’s
implication that our findings substantiate his guesswork. They do not.
We are in full agreement that there is no support from the field of population genetics for Wade’s conjectures.

This letter is highly inconvenient for Mr. Wade, making it clear that
the senior researchers in the fields from which he’s trying to marshal
support categorically reject his storytelling and bad science. Nor can
he continue to make the (untrue) argument that critiques of his book are
largely politically based, and conducted mainly by social scientists. A
strong blow has been dealt to scientific racism today."

Yale’s Kenneth Kidd, who is one of the world’s most
respected population geneticists, a central figure in establishing the
field, and another co-author on the 2002 Rosenberg paper.

Stanford’s Jonathan Pritchard, another co-author on that
paper and the researcher whose lab designed the ”Structure“ genetic
analysis software that created the ”clustering“ data Wade says supports
his argument.

Jun Li and Richard Myers, the lead and senior authors of a
2008 paper, ”Worldwide Human Relationships Inferred from Genome-Wide
Patterns of Variation,” that, as I noted in my review, Wade misrepresented as supporting his argument.

Dr. Raff continues:"Disturbingly, Mr. Wade appears to be adopting the methodology of his “HBD” followers in claiming that evolution requires acceptance of his view of race. The data do not support that position,
and saying so doesn’t make any of us anti-evolution, no matter how
loudly he says it."

My take: Raff has done a service in publicizing this. Hereditarians or "HBDers" are
experts at playing their own "race card." It takes 4 forms:

1) THE VIRTUOUS MEN OF SCIENCE TACTIC: This involves
vociferous claims to be objective, fact-finders, anchored in scholarship. What
they don't say is that too often, much of the scholarship they present like that
of much touted leading hereditarian Professor JP Rushton, or open racialist
Richard Lynn is dubious, or highly distorted, or conveniently cherry-picked to
exclude contrary scholarship. It is also often simplistic, as in assorted MAO-A
("violence gene") "smoking gun" claims. Weaknesses are often covered with apompous bluster air of messianic certainty. But
don't take my word for it. Here's conservative businessman Ron Unz, himself a
bankroller of some HBD scholars, who finds some of their claims to be distorted
and weak.

RON UNZ CRITIQUING LYNN'S
IQ AND WEATH OF NATIONS

http://www.unz.com/article/race-iq-and-wealth/

Another 30 peer reviewed links could be posted exposing
assorted HBD pretensions but you get the picture..

2) THE PERSECUTED "RACIAL REALIST": This tactic
involves posturing asa noble
"teller of truth" saying "what no one else dare say" -
heroic figures, beset by the dastardly forces of "political
correctness"and traitorous "liberals."
Alack and alas, too often this is a convenient dodge for not engaging hard
questions based on hard data and scholarshi. Is testosterone for example really
a significant determiner of violence in ethnic groups? If so, why have lower
testosterone Germans perpetrated the worse genocide in human history? And how
about those mild-mannered Chinese- racking up body counts in the tens of
millions under "the thought of Chairman Mao?"

Rather than
testosterone let's substitute the "smoking gun" MAO-A ("negro violence gene"). Even a cursory review of the many bold claims surrounding this alleged "smoking gun" debunks touted certainties.Some studies show more links with environmental conditions such as childhood maltreatment. rather than embedded "genetic causes" that supposedly "promote" violence. QUOTE:

"The interaction with childhood maltreatment also proved robust to sensitivity analyses and generalized across studies of either cross-sectional or longitudinal design and studies in which maltreatment exposure was assessed by family (self, parent) report only or included independent informant sources. It is noteworthy, too, that MAOA variation interacted with childhood maltreatment to predict outcomes referenced to both childhood/ adolescence and adulthood, dependent measures of both con-tinuous and categorical distribution, and both violent and non- violent antisocial behaviors. The latter finding suggests that the low-activity MAOA genotype heightens maltreatment-dependent risk for a range of conduct problems and not aggression or criminal violence specifically."
--Byrd and Manuck 2014. MAOA, childhood maltreatment and antisocial behavior

Likewise Haberstick et al 2005, and another study using a clinical sample of males referred for substance abuse or conduct disorder problems [Young et al., 2006] [show] a direct effect of maltreatment on subsequent antisocial behaviour, but not MAOA genotype, was reported. In addition, results from analyses using a measure of violent victimization during adolescence in place of childhood maltreatment [Haberstick et al., 2005] also did not replicate the interaction hypothesis of Caspi and colleagues (2002). (Taylor 2013).

So much for the "smoking gun" on the "negro violence gene." "Politically correct liberals"
seem to have the bad habit of exposing the sweeping claims of hereditarians
both factually and logically. Obviously this is "unfair" to
self-servingly styled "tellers of uncomfortable truths."

3) THE PLAUSIBLE DENIAL TACTIC: This tactic involves 3
methods:

(a) The stacked deck pullback- insinuation of the racial
subtext, but pulling back just enough to permit "plausible denial"
that race or a particular racialist approach or conclusion is being pushed.
Hence a blog post, article or book may work a stacked deck, loading up on a
particular item- i.e. "gene indicators of violence among groups"-
being sure to highlight the black statistics but then at the end pulling back
to "innocently" aver any intent at implying something "racial."
The Bell Curve, aside from its naive use of correlations, is a masterful
example of the stacked-deck pullback.

(b) The "mere" thought experiment- in this dodge.
a "thought experiment" is invoked- mere speculation and wondering-
they say. Building on the stacked deck, the reader is asked to indulge this
speculation. What if genes were discovered that were the primary determinants
of violence? Could this explain rates of black criminality? Could this gene be
"associated" with other things like IQ. childbearing, hell, even rap
music? The "thought experiment" allows the stacked deck data to be
used widely to insinuate all sorts of distortions, but since it is "not
real" but "merely" or "only" a "thought
experiment" - then "plausible denial" is preserve. Harpending
and Cochran in their book 10,000 Year Explosion use "thought
experiments" quite handily.

(c) The back-handed diss - The back-handed diss disparages
targeted racial others via use of distorted or inaccurate commentary on what
appears they claim to be a "factual" matter. Thus Harpending and
Cochran say in their book:

“In most ways (except for their use of iron tools) African
technology and social organization were simpler than that of Amerindians- at
any rate simpler than Andean and Mesoamerican civilizations."

The only thing wrong with this statement is that it is
rubbish. It reveal a profound lack of understanding and up to date scholarship
about Africa. In fact for millennia, Africa was a leader
in technology and social organization. As shown by credible mainstream
archaeologists and anthropologists,(Zakrewski 2004, 2007,Kemp 2005, Bard 2001,
Redford 2001, Smith 2002, Keita 1992, 2005, Godde 2009 etc etc)it was tropical Africans, from the south,
that established the Dynasties- they pioneered the first systematic writing
systems, some centuries earlier than Mesopotamia.(See Gunter Dreyer's excavations- Dreyer
1999- Umm El-Quaab I- The Predynastic Royal Tomb U-j and Its Early
Writing-Evidence) Centuries later on into the New Kingdom, it was these same
Egyptians that played a key part in the adaptations and adjustments that led to
alphabetic scripts by Semitics in Egypt which in turn spread throughout the
Mediterranean world to Europe. (See Yale's David Sacks' (2003) "Language
Visible" for the data). It was these same tropical Africans that went on
to do systematic large scale irrigation, including some of the "social
organization" that made possible some of the greatest engineering works of
all time. All this is well established by credible mainstream scholars. About
20% of Egypt by
the way falls within the tropical zone. It was these same Africans under such
rulers as Mansa Musa for example that could post economies and kingdoms
exceeding several of the kingdoms of contemporary Europe. Mali at one time for example produced one-third to one-half of the world's gold supply and
controlled an area the size of Europe.

Harpending and Cochran then go on dismissively refer toareas of Africa “not
influenced by Islamic civilization- west, central and southern Africa"
as if these areas of Africa need to independently
pioneer everything to be validated. They do not make a similar insinuation for
parts ofEurope -
such as the Nordic zone or British Isles that came late
to advanced technology and organization in antiquity, and copied and borrowed
in huge quantities. This is a typicalpattern of hypocrisy by some right wing hereditarians when it comes to Africa.
Part of the pattern is to hail and tout historical innovation or advances
anywhere in Europe, even when they derive from or build upon
innovations/advances from elsewhere, but to dismiss developments in Africa
unless they appear throughout the continent, or to dismiss African developments
as the product of some outside influence.

Note the double
standard. Europe itself is a massive borrower and copier
of technology from other peoples- inventing neither the alphabet, nor
pioneering the key domesticates that underpin 'civilization', nor even cultural
products such the massively influential Christian religion for example. Why the
hypocritical double standard that lets Europe massively
borrow and copy from the world over but when in comes to Africa,
Africans somehow are deficient if they copy something? Why the hypocritical
double standard that hails Greeks who borrow techniques and concepts from the
sub-tropical "Middle East" but distorts,
downplays and denies African achievements within Africa,
such as the NileValley?

4) THE SPADE IN THE SHADOWS/BLACK BOGEYMAN TACTIC: The bread and butter of
hereditarianism is the black bogeyman- the sinister, looming OTHER- the 'spade
in the shadows'. This figure is the foremost driver. Part of the
"HBD" enterprise is of course anchored in segregationist
justifications of Jim Crow, an enterprise heavily steeped in scientific racialism,
and handsomely financed by organizations such as the Pioneer Fund and
individual donors. As under Jim Crow. the ominous, inferior, brutish,
threatening negro is the central subtext. Oh, more sophisticated proponents breezily deny such. Like any good politician, hereditarians know the game of telling
different audiences different things. To the gullible and naive, they are
merely intrepid explorers, heroes "unjustly" persecuted by "the
liberals." Why we are just exploring the data, they piously chirp.

To the true red meat, true-believing "faithful"
the charade is often discarded altogether, as the snarling, sneering racialist and openly
racist networks of blogs, websites and forums attest. I was surprised one day to run across
one forum where the denizens therein, "the white faithful" spent the
bulk of their time obsessively cataloging the movement of interracial celebrity
couples. Another picture of Tiger Woods chaps for the obligatory "Two
Minutes of Hate"? The black bogeyman is the central driver, the lifeblood
that drives the whole "HBD" or hereditarian culture. Strip away the pious denials, noble postures or
sleight of hand, and as they themselves like to phrase- there lies the bottom
line of "racial reality." To be sure also, other designated enemies,
particularly Jews, or "hypergamous" white women (translation- women
the denizens have little chance of getting who seem to attract a peculiar
rage),enter into the OTHER mix, but the
bottom line, beneath it all, the central object of animus, is the lurking 'spade in the shadows'.

Conclusion:

The use of the term "Human Biodiversity" by hereditarians
is a smokescreen, calculated to obfuscate and hide the racialist component and
obsession that is at the heart of "HBD." Race is at the center- it is
the engine of the HBD world - whether it be in bogus science re "racial
evolutionary differences" or shaky scientific cover for certain social
policies, or a newer, ostensibly more "objective" and respectable
packaging for the Nazi and Kluxer race-baiters of old. There are people who say
they are willing to look at any hypothesis but HBDers already have a set
ideology rooted in conscious or sub-conscious bias.

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Why do Thais post lower IQ scores than East Asians like Chinese, particularly southern Chinese? The latest info from hereditarians places Thai scores in the high 80s per Lynn and Vanhanen
(Intelligence: A Unifying Construct for the Social Sciences 2012.) This should not be the case if genetics ruled, because genetically the Thais, on the average, cluster with Chinese, particularly southern Chinese. Indeed, DNA analysis (Kong et al 2011) shows that China was peopled by migrants from the warmer south- i.e. "the southern route" via Southeast Asia. Quote:

"The observation that most of the newly recognized mtDNA lineages have
already differentiated
and show the highest genetic diversity in southern
China provided additional evidence in support of the Southern Route
peopling
hypothesis of East Asians. Specifically, the
enrichment of most of the basal lineages in southern China and their
rather ancient
ages in Late Pleistocene further suggested that
this region was likely the genetic reservoir of modern humans after they
entered
East Asia."

The DNA data also shows that Thais cluster with southern Chinese, as would be expected if there were migrational overlap from the south into China. Quote:" On the other hand, Thais, Vietnamese, and Cambodians joined with southern
Chinese."

Cavalli-Sforza (
The History and Geography of Human Genes (1994) likewise clusters Thais closer to Chinese as compared with non-Asians, and on the same twig as southern Chinese. Interestingly, Cavalli-Sforza also shows Tibetans to be much close genetically to Northern Chinese, and yet, according to top racialist hereditarian scholar Richard Lynn, Thai's post much lower IQ scores than southern Chinese, or more northerly East Asian types, including Koreans and Japanese. As for the closely related Tibetans, they post IQ scores almost 1 standard deviation below their closely related genetic Chinese counterparts per hereditarian studies. QUOTE:

"The intelligence and mathematical ability of Tibetan and Han Chinese
junior and senior secondary school and college students in Tibet was
assessed by a modified version of the Standard Progressive Matrices and a
mathematics test. Among junior secondary school students, the Tibetans
obtained a lower IQ than the Chinese by 12.6 IQ points, and also scored
lower on mathematics. Tibetan senior secondary school students and
college students also obtained lower IQs and lower scores on mathematics
tests than the Chinese."
--Lynn, Richard (2008). IQ and Mathematics Ability of Tibetans and Han Chinese. Mankind Quarterly, Vol. 48, No. 4 (Summer 2008) pp. 505-510.

China's 2009 PISA scores show similar patterns. Most of the top scores are from the southerly regions, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Macau or closer to the south than the north (Zhejiang). How is it that the much maligned tropical areas post the highest IQ scores among Chinese, beating out the supposedly more advanced cold-climate northerners, and yet closely related Thais, also from more tropical regions score lower?

How is it that cold-climate Tibetans, closely related genetically to other East Asians like non-southern Chinese, Koreans, etc post lower IQ scores? These are not distant cold climate peoples like Inuit, but closely related fellow East Asians.

Thomas Sowell warned in his excellent critique of the Bell Curve that correlation is not causation. That wise principle heavily applies in the field where many are prone to sweeping claims of messianic certainty:

"Perhaps the most intellectually troubling aspect of The Bell Curve is the authors' uncritical approach to statistical correlations. One of the first things taught in introductory statistics is that correlation is not causation. It is also one of the first things forgotten, and one of the most widely ignored facts in public policy research. The statistical term "multicollinearity," dealing with spurious correlations, appears only once in this massive book..Multicollinearity refers to the fact that many variables are highly correlated with one another, so that it is very easy to believe that a certain result comes from variable A, when in fact it is due to variable Z, with which A happens to be correlated. In real life, innumerable factors go together.
--Sowell Thomas (1995) The Bell Curve Wars

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

QUOTE:[i]"Evidence in Lower Egypt consists mainly of settlements with very simple burials, in contrast to Upper Egypt, where cemeteries with elaborate burials are found. The rich grave goods in several major cemeteries in Upper Egypt represent the acquired wealth of higher social strata, and these cemeteries were probably associated with centers of craft production. Trade and exchange of finished goods and luxury materials from the Eastern and Western Deserts and Nubia would have taken place in such centers. In Lower Egypt however, while excavated settlements permit a broader reconstruction of the prehistoric economy, there is little evidence for any great socioeconomic complexity... Archaeological evidence points to the origins of the state which emerged by the 1st Dynasty in Nagada culture of Upper Egypt, where grave types, pottery and artifacts demonstrate an evolution of from from the Predynastic to the 1st Dynasty. This cannot be demonstrated for the material culture of lower Egypt, which was eventually displaced by that originating in Upper Egypt."[/i]--K. Bard (2005). Encyclopaedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt. 28We are going DOWN SOUTH, way back south, and way down in Egypt-Land on this one. A common refrain in some quarters is how come "the south" gets disrespected or distorted? We ask the same only our "south" is "the south" in Egypt, and southerly regions of the Nile Valley basin. As shown by the quote above from the conservative Encyclopaedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, it was "the south" that is the pioneering, pace-setter of progress. Imagine flipping that around in American terms.. Anyway, as credible scholarship for decades has shown, the genesis of ancient Egyptian civilization is in the south, which just happens to be home to folk of more "darker" hues (such folk are also well represented up nawth by the way). The south is also more tropical, indeed almost 20% of Egypt is in the tropical zone, which slices through the land in the south.

The peoples who founded that civilization were indigenous tropical Africans that came from the south, south of the Sahara, in the tropical zone. and including the broad Saharan zone. Credible scholars have long shown this in data ranging from cranial evidence (Godde 2009, Keita 1992, 1990, 2005), to dental evidence (Irish 2006,Ricaut 2008) to archae-cultural evidence (Yurco 1989, 1996, Redford 2001) to DNA (Morkot 2005, Keita 2004, 2005, Stevanovich 2004) to limb proportion data (Zakrewski 2003, 2007, Raxter and Ruff 2008, et al). 2004). In short "Sub-Saharan Africans," "Black Africans" or "Tropical Africans" are not exclusively, (and conveniently confined) to "Nubia", but have been in Kemet since Day 1. Indeed, credible scholars have long shown that the Nubians are the closest ethnic cousins of the ancient Egyptians- they are not a separate "Black African" entity.

The south's triumph is not one of "barbarian hordes" sweeping north, but instead represents a stronger, more technologically sophisticated, richer culture eventually taking over that of the cooler climate Mediterranean zone. This is not to say that the northern folk did not have their own level of sophistication- they did- and indeed there is trade activity documented with Mesopotamia and other nearby places. Nevertheless, the fact is that it was the south that established the famous Dynastic civilization.

Why is this important? Because both in racialist academia (see Harpending and Cochran's The Ten Thousand Year Explosion) and on the racialist and more open and explicit racist web networks, standard claims fundamentally disparage the south- alleging a putative cold climate virtue as the source of all good, compared to those backward tropical peoples, "down south." Oh the phrasing is more sophisticated and coded, but we know the racialist bottom line. In the more genteel version, as in Cochran and Harpending has this to say for example:

“In most ways (except for their use of iron
tools) African technology and social organization were simpler than that of
Amerindians- at any rate simpler than Andean and Mesoamerican civilizations."

But such statements reveal a profound lack of understanding and up to date scholarship about Africa. In fact for millennia, Africa was a leader in technology and social organization. As shown by credible mainstream archaeologists, it was these tropical Africans, the early Egyptians, the ones from the south that established the Dynasties- they pioneered the first systematic writing systems, some centuries earlier than Mesopotamia.
(See Gunter Dreyer's excavations- Dreyer 1999- Umm El-Quaab I- The Predynastic Royal Tomb U-j and Its Early Writing-Evidence)
Centuries later on into the New Kingdom, it was these same Egyptians that played a key part in the adaptations and adjustments that led to alphabetic scripts by Semitics in Egypt which in turn spread throughout the Mediterranean world to Europe. (See Yale's David Sacks' (2003) "Language Visible" for the data).

It was these same Africans from the south that with the favorable Nile River at their disposal who pioneered decrue agriculture- or systems of basin irrigation that captured water and silt deposited by the river. Such basin irrigation systems are ancient in Africa and are still seen today. On top of this was the system of canals, locks and dams that further channeled the captured waters to crop fields. It was not merely waiting for the river to dump its silt after which "the culluds" - in "unchallenging" "tropical style" tossed seeds hither and yon, then sat around drinking local beer while the crop sprang up. It was these same tropical Africans that went on to do many other things, including some of the "social organization" that made possible some of the greatest engineering works of all time. All this is well established by credible mainstream scholars.

In addition, Egypt is not, and does not have to be some sort of "central civilization headquarters" in Africa to validate it as the African civilization affirmed by multiple mainstream scholars. Pyramids do not have to show up in the Gulf of Guinea to "validate" Egypt an African polity, anymore than Greek temples to Athena have to show up in ancient Sweden to call Swedes European. Why is it that when it comes to "the South" - Africa, so many Eurocentric double standards appear?

Hypocrisy, distortion and double standards of certain European scholars re Africa
Harpending and Cochran go on to dismissively refer to areas of Africa “not influenced by Islamic civilization- west, central
and southern Africa" as if these areas of Africa need to independently pioneer everything to be validated. They do not make a similar insinuation for parts of Europe - such as the Nordic zone or British Isles that came late to advanced technology and organization in antiquity, and copied and borrowed in huge quantities. Theirs is a typical pattern of hypocrisy by European scholars when it comes to Africa. Part of the pattern is to hail and tout historical innovation or advances anywhere in Europe, even when they derive from or build upon innovations/advances from elsewhere, but to dismiss developments in Africa unless they appear throughout the continent, or to dismiss African developments as the product of some outside influence.

Note the double standard. Europe itself is a massive borrower and copier of technology from other peoples- inventing neither writing, nor pioneering the key domesticates that underpin 'civilization', nor cultural products such the massively influential Christian religion for example. Why the hypocritical double standard that lets Europe massively borrow and copy from the world over but when in comes to Africa, Africans somehow are deficient if they copy something? Why the hypocritical double standard that hails Greeks who borrow techniques and concepts from the sub-tropical "Middle East" but distorts, downplays and denies African achievements within Africa, such as the Nile Valley? Why the hypocritical double standard that embraces Greeks and Swedes as Europeans, but denies and distorts African bio-history, even excluding broad-nosed, jet black "sub-Saharan" people from being "really" African as detailed numerous times in this blog, AND peer reviewed scholarly articles in the field?

Note also another tactic used- that of "plausible denial" soft racialism- which includes subtle distortion or downplaying, or alleged innocent "thought experiments" that lay the groundwork for certain conclusions but allows a pullback or obfuscation.

As stated elsewhere:
European civilization is built heavily in part on a foundation of borrowing and copying from non-European peoples, who in other eras borrowed and copied form Europe. Over time, like everywhere else theee borrowings were adapted, improved on and new innovations developed. This is all part of the common pattern, sharing and inheritance of human culture. The world shares in many ways common patterns, strands of culture and ways of doing things. Hypocritical scholarship or racialism though makes out that only Europeans invented anything of value. Fortunately, SOME honest Europeans and Asians have seen through such double standards, unlike their more benighted racialist brethren. They know for example, that Europe is not a first-mover or inventor in many of the fundamental building blocks of civilization. And that's fine. They see no need for simplistic chest-thumpingdisplays, or less visible manipulation and distortion of the record, or subtle dismissals of the record. Some of this honesty is often identified with progressive Europeans, but some conservative boosters of the West, such as Ian Morris (Why The West Rules- 2010) candidly and frankly admit the facts. They know that Europeans did not invent writing. They did not invent plant domestication. They did not invent animal domestication. They did not invent agriculture. They did not invent metallurgy. They did not invent ship-building. They did not invent the wheel. They did not invent divine kingship. They did not invent astronomy. They did not invent science. They did not invent powered machinery and its gear mechanisms. All of these things came from tropical or sub-tropical peoples of Africa or the Asian marches. The alphabets used by Europeans for example came via scripts invented by tropical Africans in ancient Egypt, which in turn were copied and modified by Middle Eastern peoples like Phoenicians, before finally filtering down into Europe (Sacks 2003). The list can go on.

Let's recap: For one thing, the earliest most, advanced civilizations in the world were created by tropical peoples, not cold climate Europeans or Asiatics. Egypt for example was a leader in civilization for millennia before the rise of Greece, and Egypt was founded by indigenous tropical Africans from the south as attested to by mainstream scholars, and as freely admitted to, even by conservative writers such as Mary Lefkowitz.

[b]In addition, Europe has been a massive borrower and copier and beneficiary of technologies developed elsewhere - from the key plant and animal domesticates of the Neolithic Natufians, to the improvements in metallurgy, pottery, construction etc down the ages, often introduced by said Natufians.[/b] The Greeks did what they did mostly on imported, not home grown technology. As the centuries rolled by there was the Arab era, again, benefiting Europe as technology from the east moved Westward to be adapted, copied and eventually improved, including advances in knowledge (the concept of zero for example is from India, algebra from the Middle East), steelmaking, mining, engineering, etc etc.

[b]Joseph Needham's monumental work: Science and Civilization in China,[/b] is but one example documenting the creations and innovations in place before anything comparable in Europe. The modern Chinese surge in technology and economic muscle continues or recaptures a pattern in part, that began long before Europe rose to prominence.

[b]Things like Medieval European universities for example drew heavily on the work of Islamic writers,[/b] including Islamic compilations of ancient Greek, Indian and Persian writings. Indeed it is commonly recognized that the scholarship of Islam is the central preserver of ancient knowledge and transmitter to medieval Europe, and its centers of learning.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_medieval_Islam#On_the_impact_of_medieval_Islamic_science
for detailed references.

[b]In fact Europeans are ALSO heavy beneficiaries of geographical windfalls in that numerous technological and cultural advances crucial to civilization,[/b] (from key animal and plant domestication- cows or wheat for example, to literacy, to advanced metallurgy and a host of other items) were put in place first by non-Europeans, and then imported along a favorable easy East-West climate axis for Europeans to cash in on the windfall. Honest Europeans have no problems with these facts- they do not diminish "the glory that was Greece," or "the grandeur that was Rome." They are simply human culture 101.

Such geographical windfalls for Europe are shown in detail in Jared Diamond's 1997 Guns, Germs and Steel. Other writers such as Sowell 1981 note further geographic windfalls such as navigable river systems and harbor-friendly coastlines that enabled the spread of non-European derived ideas, technology and innovation. Europeans are borrowers from, and copiers of other peoples par excellence, even in cultural products nowadays deemed "European", such as the massively influential Christian religion. Candidly recognizing such facts does not hurt white self-esteem, wealth, power or accomplishments as honest Europeans have long recognized. They see no need for "plausible denial" tactics to obscure and distort.

[b]For most of its history, large parts of Africa have been isolated and under-populated, similar to white areas like Ireland, or the Balkans. These are historically poor European areas that have disadvantages in geography and political fragmentation. parts of Africa likewise show the same pattern. This again, is nothing special. [/b]Note that those areas of Africa that had good transport and access to trade show a different pattern. We have already discussed ancient Egypt, but look also at ancient Mali and Ghana. You have to do apples to apples comparisons. In medieval times, Ghana and Mali had a standard of living higher than or equal to numerous contemporary kingdoms in Europe. Wealth was certainly greater than many European countries of the time. Look at the history of Mansa Musa below for example and you will see why.

Recap for new readers:Mali in the same 1200-1300 time period most likely exceeded several (never said all) kingdoms in contemporary Europe in terms of wealth, extent of territorial dominion, and size of its armed forces. And this is BEFORE the Black Death was to begin to ravage Europe.For example, by the beginning of the 14th century, Mali was the source of almost half the Old World's gold exported from mines in Bambuk, Boure and Galam.
(--Stride, G.T & C. Ifeka. Peoples and Empires of West Africa: West Africa in History 1000-1800".
Nelson, 1971)

Other historians point to the impact of Malian gold in economic development of the Mediterranean: QUOTE:

[i]The most important foundation of Malian power, however, was control of gold, and it is as a manof gold that Mansa Musa is still remembered. His story is quite important to world economic history, since the supply of gold he commanded played a crucial role in the economic growth of the Mediterranean."[/i]
--Merry E. Wiesner 2002. Discovering the Global Past

and

[i]"It should be remembered here that during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there was an acute shortage of precious metals in Europe and in the Muslim lands and that the only really important source of gold was in the western Sudan and its hinterland."[/i]
--M. Ma³owist (1966). The Social and Economic Stability of the Western Sudan in the Middle Ages. Source: Past and Present, No. 33, (Apr., 1966), pp.3-15. Published by: Oxford University Press

[i]"From an examination of Omari's writings, which come from the same period and are based on Sudanese accounts, it may be concluded that particularly a griculture and fruit-gathering, and also, in certain parts of the country, hunting and the rearing of l ivestock, assured the Mali peasants of a relatively prosperous and independent life, satisfying their needs without much contact with the outside world."

Arab travellers from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries all tell us that Mali towns Timbuktu, Gao and lesser places - were in general well supplied with victuals, and there is no doubt that the towns obtained some of their provisions by trade with the peasantry. The rural areas had a surplus of agricultural and animal products which was dispatched for sale in the towns. Ibn Batoutah and other sources indicate that the western Sudan even exported a certain amount of millet and rice to the Sahel regions, not only to Walata but also farther towards the districts where rock-salt and copper were exploited for import into the Sudan.[/i]

[i]“Jaime Cortesao has drawn historians' attention to Portuguese sources of the early fifteenth century, according to which Portuguese gold currency was at that time based on importing from Morocco gold which must have come from the Sudan. The same author is of the opinion that it was above all in Sudanese gold that Morocco paid the import costs for European and Levantine goods brought by the Genoese and the Venetiansl2 a suggestion confirmed by several Italian documents. It should be added that Sudanese trade was not the only way in which Sudanese gold in large quantities reached Egypt and the Near East. Sudanese pilgrims, who each year visited Egypt and the holy places of Islam in Arabia, brought with them very considerable quantities of gold to spend on the journey and on arrival in Cairo, Mecca and Medina.”[/i]

----M. Ma³owist (1966). The Social and Economic Stability of the Western Sudan in the Middle Ages. Source: Past and Present, No. 33, (Apr., 1966), pp. 3-15. Published by: Oxford University Press.

[i]"The rising European demand for gold, added to the perennial market in the Islamic states, stimulated
more gold production in the Sudan, to the enormous fiscal advantage of Mali. In the latest medieval
period overall, West Africa may have been producing almost two-thirds of the world's gold supply." [/i]
-- Ross E. Dunn. 1987. The adventures of Ibn Battuta, a Muslim traveler of the fourteenth century

----------------------------------------------

[b]Compare to Britain in the same general era - not to "prove" who was "better" but to show that African polities had their own long track record of wealth and accomplishment. These would later be overshadowed by other powers, just as Britain was once a mere colony under the Roman hegemon. In time, the wheel turned. There is no need for distortions or propaganda campaigns to slander or dismiss the African record:[/b]
-------------------

[i]".. there was no English commercial revolution, no development of banks and credit facilities that can be claimed for thirteenth-century Italy. One consequence of this relative backwardness was that in the thirteenth century, an increasing proportion of England's foreign trade came to be in Italian hands.. In a very real sense late thirteenth-century England was being treated as a partially developed economy. Much of its import-export business was handled by foreigners (Gascons and Flemings as well as Italians. Its main exports were raw materials - wool and grain- rather than manufactured goods, There had been, in other words, no industrial revolution."

.. Moreover, despite the claims sometimes made for the cloth-fulling mill, there were no significant advances in industrial technology. Nor was there anything to compare with the highly capitalized development of the Flemish cloth industry in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries."

"..Above all, there was no agricultural revolution.. the technical limitations under which they worked meant no significant increase in yields was possible, neither from sheep in terms of weight of fleece, nor from seed in terms of yield of grain. Though the use of the horse as a draught animal was spreading, this was of marginal importance. ."

".. Thus in many respect England remained a stagnant economy. It can indeed be argued that by comparison with some of its neighbors, especially Flanders and Italy, England was less advanced in the thirteenth century than it had been in the eleventh.. In twelfth and thirteenth-century England, people felt they lived in a country which was economically advanced by comparison with the lands of their Celtic neighbours." [/i]

Note: none of the above says that there may not have been European kingdoms at the time richer than Mali- of course- there might be such, just as Mali in turn was richer than other European kingdoms, and just as China or some of China's kingdoms,were better off than several European or African kingdoms of the same era, and vice versa.

The point is that some African kingdoms, depending on the era examined, compared favorably or better than European kingdoms of that same era. Mali's ascent is more in perspective because despite its gold and salt fields, despite the lavish sponsorship of learning centers such as Timbuktu (as later developed under the successor Songhai Empire) etc., nature in some ways, still dealt a harsh hand- with a territory that was heavy on desert, with long distance trade needing to go through by camel caravan via the Sahara to get to major trading partners, and a lack of good navigable rivers and natural harbors that might have better moved men and material in bulk. Contrast with parts of Europe and ability to more easily import skills, technology, materials and methods from non-Europeans elsewhere, and thus copy and borrow more effectively from others as a basis for its own innovations. The alleged "easy" tropical environments of "HBD" lore are deliberate distortions of Africa and its history. The African tropical zone never yielded anything "easy." Much gold and salt for example had to be mined the hard way and moved over harsh desert terrain. Nothing was "easy."

Hence we return to the south, Note the detailed data put forth by credible mainstream archaeologists and scholars below- QUOTE:

"..
but his [Frankfort's] frequent citations from African ethnography- over
60 are listed in the index- demonstrate that there is a powerful
resonance between recent African concepts and practice on one hand, and
ancient Egyptian kingship and religion on the other.."

"First, kingship in Egypt was 'the
channel through which the powers of nature flowed into the body politic
to bring human endeavour to fruition' and thus was closely analogous to
the widespread African belief that 'chieftains entertain closer
relationship with the powers in nature than other men' (Frankfort 1948:
33, ch. 2). Second, the Egyptian king's metaphorical identification as
an all powerful bull who tramples his enemies and inseminates his
cow-mother to achieve regeneration was derived from Egyptian ideas and
beliefs abut cattle for which best parallels can be found in some, but
not all, recent African societies.."

"Like the chiefs discussed
by Rowlands, the king combines 'life giving forces with the power to
kill" (Rowlands, CHaptr 4:52). Overall, this Egyptian concept of
kingship, so akin to African models, seems very different to that held
in the ancient Near East (Frankfort 1948; Postgate 1995)"

"In
conclusion, there is a relative abundance of ancient materials relevant
to contact and influence, as well as striking correlations between
ancient Egyptian civilization and the ethnography of recent and current
sub-Saharan communities, chiefdoms and states... Perhaps the fact that
commonalities do exist suggests that, because of great time depth and
different organization, these commonalities may result from inherently
African processes."

OTHER MAINSTREAM SCHOLARS SHOW THE AFRICAN CHARACTER OF EGYPTConservative mainstream OxfordEncyclopedia of Ancient Egypt showsancient Egypt derived from an Africancultural sub-stratum

[QUOTE:]

[i]"The evidence also points to linkages to
other northeast African peoples, not
coincidentally approximating the modern
range of languages closely related to
Egyptian in the Afro-Asiatic group
(formerly called Hamito-Semetic). These
linguistic similarities place ancient
Egyptian in a close relationship with
languages spoken today as far west as
Chad, and as far south as Somalia.
Archaeological evidence also strongly
supports an African origin. A widespread
northeastern African cultural assemblage,
including distinctive multiple barbed
harpoons and pottery decorated with
dotted wavy line patterns, appears during
the early Neolithic (also known as the
Aqualithic, a reference to the mild
climate of the Sahara at this time).
Saharan and Sudanese rock art from this
time resembles early Egyptian
iconography. Strong connections
between Nubian (Sudanese) and
Egyptian material culture continue in
later Neolithic Badarian culture of Upper
Egypt. Similarities include black-topped
wares, vessels with characteristic
ripple-burnished surfaces, a special
tulip-shaped vessel with incised and
white-filled decoration, palettes, and
harpoons...

Other ancient Egyptian practices show
strong similarities to modern African
cultures including divine kingship, the
use of headrests, body art, circumcision,
and male coming-of-age rituals, all
suggesting an African substratum or
foundation for Egyptian civilization.."

"Ancient Egypt belongs to a language
group known as 'Afroasiatic' (formerly
called Hamito-Semitic) and its closest
relatives are other north-east African
languages from Somalia to Chad. Egypt's
cultural features, both material and
ideological and particularly in the earliest
phases, show clear connections with that
same broad area. In sum, ancient Egypt
was an African culture, developed by
African peoples, who had wide ranging
contacts in north Africa and western
Asia."
--Morkot, Robert (2005) The Egyptians: An Introduction. p. 10)

"The ancient Egyptians were not 'white' in any European sense, nor were they 'Caucasian'... we can say that the earliest population of ancient Egypt included African people from the upper Nile, African people from the regions of the Sahara and modern Libya, and smaller numbers of people who had come from south-western Asia and perhaps the Arabian peninsula."
--Robert Morkot (2005). The Egyptians: An Introduction. pp. 12-13

"Over the long run of northeastern African history, what emerges most strongly is the extent to which ancient Egypt's culture grew from sub-Saharan African roots. The earliest foundations of the culture that was to evolve into that of dynastic Egypt were laid, as we have already discovered, by Afrasan immigrants
from the general direction of the southern Red Sea hills, who arrived probably well before 10,000 B.C.E. The new inhabitants brought with them a language directly ancestral to ancient Egyptian. They introduced to Egypt the idea of using wild grasses or grains as food. They also introduced a new religion Its central belief, in the efficacy of clan deities, explains the traceability of the ancient Egyptian gods to different particular
Egyptians localities: originally they were the deities of the local communities, whose members in still earlier times had belonged to a clan or a group of related clans."
--Christopher Ehret. (2002) The Civilizations of Africa: A History to 1800. p. 93

".. how is it come about that Neolithic Saharan civilizations, ancient Egypt and modern Black African civilizations share cultural features? .. Today however, essentially autochthonous explanations are preferred based on what we call the substratum theory, whereby all the civilizations in question, even in their
differences and peculiarities share a common cultural substratum as occurs in the northern world among Indo-European civilizations."
--CERVELLÓ AUTUORI, Joseph, Egypt, Africa and the Ancient World, in: Proceedings 7th Int. Congress of Egyptologists, 261-272.

------------------------------------------------------------

THE SOUTH DOES NOT NEED COOKIE CUTTER ELEMENTS IN ALL THE SAME PLACES TO BE "VALIDATED" - a critique

The Nile River Basin as shown above touches a huge swath of northeast and central Africa, just as the Sahara is a true Pan-African entity that cuts across the continent. It was once a lush greenbelt that covered one third of Africa from coast to coast. Indeed, it is a Pan-African entity that has been a key motor of Africa's evolution as credible scholars show-Quote:"Radiocarbon data from 150 archaeological excavations in the now hyper-arid Eastern Sahara of Egypt, Sudan, Libya, and Chad reveal close links between climatic variations and prehistoric occupation during the past 12,000 years. Synoptic multiple-indicator views for major time slices demonstrate the transition from initial settlement after the sudden onset of humid conditions at 8500 B.C.E. to the exodus resulting from gradual desiccation since 5300 B.C.E. Southward shifting of the desert margin helped trigger the emergence of pharaonic civilization along the Nile, influenced the spread of pastoralism throughout the continent, and affects sub-Saharan Africa to the present day."
--Kruper and Kropelin 2008. Climate-Controlled Holocene Occupation in the Sahara: Motor of Africa's Evolution

Likewise there is a a Trans-Saharan Pastoral Technocomplex that links the Nile Valley all the way to West Africa. QUOTE: "a Trans-Saharan Pastoral Technocomplex MacDonald, KC; (1998) dating to between 3800 and 1000 BC. Material support for this notion comes from a shared set of valued ojects (notably small stone axes and stone rings), as well as a common pastoral economy and stylistically similar tumuli, which ultimately stretched from Kerma (Sudan) in the east to Dhar Tichitt (Mauritania) in the west. "
--- MacDonald, KC; (1998) Before the Empire of Ghana: Pastoralism and the Origins of Cultural Complexity in the Sahel. In: Connah, G, (ed.) Transformations in Africa: essays on Africa's later past. (71 - 103).

In short, despite Africa's many geographic handicaps (such as lack of fully navigable rivers or good ports, or other barriers like deserts) it has its linkages,and there is a common "southern culture" - a package of material culture, technology, religious beliefs etc that cut across wide areas. Such commonalities are stronger of course in countries near to one another- like Egypt and the Sudan, or Egypt which has linguistic links with Chad, in Central Africa. The great Pan-African span of the Sahara delivers these linkages in varied strengths but they are there. Just because hymns to Osiris fail to be found on cave walls in Kenya does
not in the slightest bit weaken the fact that the peoples of both Kenya
and the Nile Valley are part of one African reality- (DNA, cultural,
limb proportion etc) diverse indeed, but ultimately one- just as Greeks
and Swedes form part of a European reality. Eurocentric models too often engage in "splittism" by insinuation- splitting Africa up
into little chunks which can then be regrouped in such a way as to deny
or minimize commonality.

And what's wrong with
areas NEAR to Egypt showing the deep-rooted African cultural patterns
and commonalities? Since when is "beyond Nubia" a point of validation?
How come the same litmus test is seldom applied to say European peoples
like Greeks to validate common patterns based on the Mediterranean basin
in agriculture, culture, material artifacts and so on? The ancient
Greeks had the greatest impact in areas comparatively CLOSE TO Greece-
North Africa, Anatolia, Italy and the Balkans. Unlike the more
land-based Egyptians, their islands were more sea-based and thus it was
natural for them to use the broad seafaring belt of the Mediterranean to
facilitate that influence. Even so, the bulk of their ancient impact
was in that general Medit zone. Few people are going around saying that
the Greeks should show temples in ancient France to "prove" they are
European, or that the ancient peoples of Gaul should likewise be
huddling around such temples as "proof" they also are European.

As noted above, there is DEEP AFRICAN CULTURAL
SUBSTRATUM that extended from the Nile Valley across a vast belt of
adjacent territories into the Sahara, East Africa and touching West
Africa via the Sahara. Other scholars above (O'Connor,
Wengrow etc) show just such deep linkages. Numerous African areas near to Egypt and sharing culture material and
population with Egypt- the Sahara, etc are also "SUB-SAHARAN" OR lie
within the tropical zone. Indeed, almost one-sixth of Egypt lies within
the tropical zone which for all practical purposes extends even further
north (Thompson 1997- Applied Climatology). The peoples therein are
tropical Africans, or came from "sub-Saharan Africa in the early era.
Trying to play some sort of "geographic apartheid" game where lack of
pyramids in Ghana is insinuated to conjure a vast segregation of the
Nile Valley from "interior Africa" is a dubious ploy. The Sahara was
always a moving target- and donated people and culture to vast swathes
of the continent including West Africa.

The flow of data shows Egypt
IN Africa. The cultural and technological developments that gave rise to
Egyptian civilization flowed from "inner" Africa to Egypt via the
Saharan zone. That is what laid the basis from the tool kits, to the
animal husbandry, to the proto-agriculture in protecting, storing and
harvesting wild grains, to the domestication of African breeds of
cattle, to techniques like mummification, to divine kingship, to
numerous aspects of Egyptian religion like the cattle cults, animal gods
etc. All this is well established by mainstream scholarship.
========================

FROM THE TROPICAL SOUTH..

quote:

"While communities such as Ma'adi appear to have played an important role in entrepots through which goods and ideas form south-west Asia filtered into the Nile Valley in later prehistoric times, the main cultural and political tradition that gave rise to the cultural pattern of Early Dynastic Egypt is to be found not in the north but in the south.":
The Cambridge History of Africa: Volume 1, From the Earliest Times to c. 500 BC, (Cambridge University Press: 1982), Edited by J. Desmond Clark pp. 500-509
~~~~~
"..the early cultures of Merimde, the Fayum, Badari Naqada I and II are essentially African and early African social customs and religious beliefs were the root and foundation of the ancient Egyptian way of life."
(Source: Shaw, Thurston (1976) Changes in African Archaeology in the Last Forty Years in African Studies since 1945. p. 156-68. London.)

"What is truly unique about this state is the integration of rule over an extensive geographic region, in contrast to other contemporaneous Near Easter polities in Nubia, Mesopotamia, Palestine and the Levant. Present evidence suggests that the state which emerged by the First Dynasty had its roots in the Nagada culture of Upper Egypt, where grave types, pottery and artifacts demonstrate an evolution of form from the Predynastic to the First Dynasty, This cannot be demonstrated for the material culture of Lower Egypt, which was eventually displaced by that which originated in Upper Egypt. Hierarchical society with much social and economic differentiation, as symbolized in the Nagada II cemeteries of Upper Egypt, does not seem to have been present, then, in Lower Egypt, a fact which supports an Upper Egyptian origin for the unified state. Thus archaeological evidence cannot support earlier theories that the founders of Egyptian civilization were an invading Dynastic race from the east.."

"Egyptian contact in the 4th millennium B.C. with SW Asia is undeniable, but the effect of this contact on state formation is Egypt is less clear... The unified state which emerged in Egypt in the 3rd millennium B.C. however, was unlike the polities in Mesopotamia, the Levant, northern Syria, or Early Bronze Age Palestine- in sociopolitical organization, material culture, and belief system. There was undoubtedly heightened commercial contact with SW Asia in the 4th millennium B.C., but the Early Dynastic state which emerged in Egypt is unique and religious in character."
(Bard, Kathryn A. 1994 The Egyptian Predynastic: A Review of the Evidence. Journal of Field Archaeology 21(3):265-288.)
~~~~

"From Petrie onwards, it was regularly suggested that despite the evidence of Predynastic cultures, Egyptian civilization of the 1st Dynasty appeared suddenly and must therefore have been introduced by an invading foreign 'race'. Since the 1970s however, excavations at Abydos and Hierakonpolis have clearly demonstrated the indigenous, Upper Egyptian roots of early civilization in Egypt."
(Ian Shaw ed. (2003) The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt By Ian Shaw. Oxford University Press, page 40-63)
~~~~~~~

"..sample populations available from northern Egypt from before the 1st Dynasty (Merimda, Maadi and Wadi Digla) turn out to be significantly different from sample populations from early Palestine and Byblos, suggesting a lack of common ancestors over a long time. If there was a south-north cline variation along the Nile valley it did not, from this limited evidence, continue smoothly on into southern Palestine. The limb-length proportions of males from the Egyptian sites group them with Africans rather than with Europeans."
(Barry Kemp, "Ancient Egypt Anatomy of a Civilisation. (2005) Routledge. p. 52-60)
~~~~~

"Populations and cultures now found south of the desert roamed far to the north. The culture of Upper Egypt, which became dynastic Egyptian civilization, could fairly be called a Sudanese transplant."(Egypt and Sub-Saharan Africa: Their Interaction. Encyclopedia of Pre-colonial Africa, by Joseph O. Vogel, AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, California (1997), pp. 465-472 )

And thus the South still stands. As already shown, numerous double standard and hypocritical "HBD" arguments are themselves SIMPLISTIC and fail to grasp modern anthropological and scientific data on Africa. But understanding is not the purpose of such arguments. The purpose is to downplay and distort "the south." As we see above, while such distortion is easy in the echo chambers of "the faithful" when exposed to hard data and scholarship, it falls short.